"It's the same reason we only speak circuitously about our own plot that might end up giving Cheliax a shield against Keltham."

"Sevar is proving unable to figure out her own seduction plan, because the tropes require Sevar's character perspective to not know her own plan until the moment she implements it."

"There's theoretically more things we could try, like putting her back into her bedroom and Suggesting that we've given up on figuring it out and nobody is looking at her.  But we'd be fighting tropes the whole way, and anything we could try that would actually succeed would get shut down.  Somehow."

"Why do stories even work like that, Abrogail?"

"Because it's boring to watch a character talk about what they intend to do, and then watch exactly that happen.  So any plan that they talk about out loud - or think about, where the audience can hear them, if it's a book instead of a play - can't possibly go as they plan.  Conversely, for a plan to actually be successful, the audience can't know what it is, or the character perspective if they're reading a book."

"So if Sevar isn't allowed to think about her plan, it would follow that we're in a book, because otherwise we could just tell her not to talk about it out loud."

"I don't know if that follows in any real sense and I don't know what I'd do with the thought if I did.  We aren't actually in a book or we'd - see letters about us, I suppose - you know what I'm trying to say, Aspexia."

"I'll think on this decision and go off to Nidal to consult Gorthoklek on particulars, should we decide to do it.  And make good use of my sudden sense of aggression, by which I mean, seething rage, by seeing how many enemies I can kill in a way that is unnecessarily complicated and pains them before they die."

It is a beautiful day in Cheliax, and you are a confused Carissa.

You've just awakened in one of Abrogail Thrune's guest bedrooms - not the aftercare room, as might have unfortunate connotations; a normal doompunk bedroom that's clearly of the Queen once you've had a little time to grasp Her Infernal Majestrix's tastes.

There's a note next to you from Abrogail Thrune!  It says that your other self came up with a splendid plan whose details you've unfortunately failed to rederive even with Owl's Wisdom, possibly because you were tired and frightened and trying too hard to figure out why you'd erased your memory; and there's a surface rationalization for why you erased it, which, of course, you can't be told; but realistically this all ultimately happened because tropes: the hypothetical audience would be bored if you knew what you were doing before you did it.

Step 1 of your own plan is for you to go to Hell in order to renounce your secret clerichood of Irori directly before Dispater and sell Him your soul; for two +6/+6/+4 headbands and 30 Wishes; some of which will be used to pay Keltham what the Project owes him; and also make sure that Hell controls ambiguities in his Wish interpretations; and so this doesn't bankrupt Hell's budget to buy souls in Golarion, you're going to try buying back the Project Lawful girls on whom you don't have options, at their ultra-high bona-fide prices in Hell, but paying in spellsilver whose god-agreement price relative to Hell's budget is lagging behind its price drops in Golarion.

(There is in fact somebody standing by reading your mind, with a Modify Memory to be used if necessary.  You could always wake up again, if required.  But you're not being told this.)

What.

That's...too many Wishes? Is she worth that many Wishes?

She's going to have to conquer the entire planet to be worth that many Wishes!!

And if she has that many Wishes she probably can conquer the entire planet. 

She's going to have to send Keltham the money for his option. That - stings a bit, probably just because of the reminder - he was so happy -

- but she was never counting on it as a path out of Hell. She doesn't want a path out of Hell. 

Or maybe this is all a trick and a test.  Does she pass? She doesn't think she failed. 

"Hello?" she says cautiously to the empty room. "I am an obedient Asmodean and will take over the world if Asmodeus wants me to."

To be clear, they're not necessarily going to go along with this, depending on what else Carissa thinks she's supposed to do, from here.

But at least the very first step of the Plan... doesn't seem like it obviously disadvantages Cheliax, so they may as well go along with that, and see what next step Carissa derives from there.

No, Carissa will not be told that she was being watched; let her wake up in apparent solitude.

Then she'll have the revelation that she's a cleric of Irori and should've realized sooner for the third time today!!

- and then start fretting about whether she has enough Splendour to pull this off. It seems like the kind of thing that could be pleasing to Asmodeus, but only if executed properly, beautifully. If she immediately collapses into a quivering puddle in the presence of Dispater which is what she expects will happen then that doesn't seem very satisfying. 

...good point.

There's a very obvious solution to this problem and Abrogail hates it.  The Crown of Infernal Majesty is nearly specialized on this.

The problem isn't just the temporary suffering or the lese majeste, it's that if Abrogail does that again it becomes a recurring trope.

Maybe she can send along the crown to be held by Aspexia in reserve, whereupon Sevar would look pathetic if she needed that and not just +4 Splendour, which by tropes would bring Sevar near the edge but enable her to finally triumph.

Carissa is thinking about whether she can make herself a specialized magic item for the task. Glibness might help at all, but it's really not the right thing; this is a performance, not a Bluff. You can't bluff Dispater and she isn't actually planning to try; the case for giving her all these Wishes is that she is worth them, and that Asmodeus will prosper by her having them, and that Lawful Evil's champion can't be weaker than Keltham's, or they'll lose, and can't be stronger out of Hell's desperation or generosity, or they'll lose, and so must be stronger because she sold her soul at the correct price and got more in exchange than even Keltham has access to in the short term.

...ring of eloquence? Could you do that as a sword? Is she relying on crafting as a crutch rather than just being a better Asmodean? A devil at her intelligence and splendour would not collapse into a puddle in the presence of Dispater. 

(Keltham wouldn't either but that's because he is a dumbass.)

Okay, why wouldn't a devil at her Intelligence and Splendour collapse into a puddle in the presence of Dispater? Is it something about the nature of devils or is it just that they'd have experienced more horrible suffering and would therefore be tougher? Abrogail wouldn't collapse into a puddle in the presence of Dispater, what would Abrogail be doing. ...'having much higher Splendour than Carissa' is at least part of the answer.

...or she'll let Carissa think. She could do that.

Carissa's thoughts are brighter now, the contrast to her thoughts of last night quite visible.  Overt reason, sleep deprivation; trope reason, she wasn't allowed last night to figure out her own plan.

She could go for more Splendour and less Intelligence, borrow the +6 headband back from Pilar. Aside from her entire self flinching away from the idea of being even slightly stupider during an important negotiation, that might be wise. 

And the general reason to not be stupider during a negotiation is that you'll get cleverly trapped. But soul-sale contracts are standard, she does know the standard, and conveniently some other Carissa who erased herself did all the work on figuring out what to ask for.

...did that Carissa erase herself just so this Carissa would have no ability to retreat from her ask because of not knowing what went into it. 

....that Carissa is cool. 

Yeah, okay, if some allied Carissae can erase themselves to improve her bargaining position then this one can go in with more Splendour than Intelligence. Her job is to deliver to Asmodeus the victory over Irori that He must have wanted ever since the contest over Carissa began, and get the things that she needs to win over/defeat/corrupt/whatever Keltham. 

She also wants Olegario's soul, and Abarco's, for very different reasons, but if the negotiation-planning Carissa didn't ask for that then there's no margin in the plan for it.

They can suggest something about options purchased with the mispriced spellsilver before interplanar prices of record finish adjusting, but dear Carissa is not allowed to own the souls of her Securities now.

She's not thinking about how that'd make it easier to betray Cheliax! She just feels that she should own everyone that's ever had power over her and is carefully not extending the principle too far. 

All right. Does the note say anything about timeframes? Is she going today? 

No; they weren't sure if Sevar would be ready to go today, so Aspexia didn't request all those spells.  If Sevar gets her Project in order today, and doesn't need to create any magic items that she can't just yank into existence in eight fucking hours because Carissa Sevar, then she could go tomorrow.

(Abrogail would not, usually, hurry even that much, on something of this magnitude.  But she has some reason to fear that Keltham might decide to destroy Egorian, or, if he's made the more difficult deduction/recollection, all of Cheliax, in less than a month from now.)